I am new here and don't know if this was discussed at all on the LOTR forum but here goes --

What is the point of suggesting that pipeweed is a type of pot? Tolkien calls it a type of nicotiana, so we know it is tobacco and not something that gets you high.

Since pipe smoking is a part of British/English culture and is something one associates with Oxbridge dons, we know that Tolkien was not implying that all these hobbits, wizards, rangers and dwarves were smoking dope. What's the point of PJ's suggesting that they are?

I don't think they over do it at least. It's no secret that I am a fan of "pipe weed", so the Fact that they treat it the way they do always makes me smile. "You're love of the halflings leaf has clearly slowed your mind"

You can blame the hippies who became fans of the Lord of the Rings back in the 1970s for that. It's been a running gag in the fandom for decades. And anyway, tobacco does have a funny effect on some people, even though it's not identical with cannabis.

to someone addicted to nicotine, smoking tobacco helps clear the mind by chasing away the symptoms of withdrawal. To someone who isn't addicted or otherwise doesn't smoke, its effects range from light headedness to nausea (and if enough is smoked, to addiction).

I've always thought if pipe weed isn't tobacco, that it is something akin to it -- that is a leaf rather than a bud -- with opioid rather than cannabinoid properties. Though there is no evidence of this, beyond wishful thinking perhaps.

Saruman is certainly implying that smoking it hinders brain function. I quit smoking cigarettes 20 years ago, but I don't ever remember them affecting my mental capabilities. I will go ahead and plead the 5th on what smoking the other substance does to my mental capabilities

I don't think Tolkien meant pipeweed to be taken for anything but tobacco. The argument that tobacco is a New World discovery and therefore wouldn't have been present in a prehistoric Europe doesn't hold water as potatoes are also from the New World. Nobody implies that potatoes are anything but po-ta-toes.

As for the effects of tobacco: tobacco smoked in a pipe is different than tobacco in cigarette form. My dad was a long time pipe smoker, but he never would smoke cigarettes because you inhale cigarette smoke into your lungs. Pipe's are mostly smoked for the flavor; you don't inhale. It isn't nearly as addictive; when my dad decided to quit, he quit.

I don't feel that smoking non-tobacco weeds (so to speak) is immoral, I just don't like to think that when the future of Middle-earth is on the line, Gandalf would let the halflings' weed dull his mind. "The question isn't where, Constable, but when." - Inspector Spacetime

I've never smoked anything. I'm a health nut and won't do anything that could put my health at risk. The smell is enough to chase me away. In my 23 years of living I've learned that if it smells bad, it is bad. And I've learned that smoking anything is unhealthy, be it tobbacco or cannabis. Like I I said, I'm a health nut.

Or maybe the first few but it goes away. Fortunately, I never smoked much & didn't get hooked. When I met my future husband who had asthma I had to give it up completely which was a good thing. No comment on the other thing you can smoke.m

...the hippie movement was present in the mid to late 60s and I read LOTR in 1967 or 68.

Wikipedia puts Tolkien's huge popularity in the US at the mid-60s.

"By the mid-1960s the novel had become a cultural phenomenon. " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings

"Frodo Lives!" was a popular counterculture slogan in the 1960s and 1970s, referring to the character Frodo Baggins from J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings. The term was used frequently in graffiti, buttons, bumper-stickers, t-shirts, and other materials. It was commonly associated with the hippie movement. " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frodo_Lives! LOTR soundtrack website ~ magpie avatar galleryTORn History Mathom-house ~ Torn Image Posting Guide

and outselling many former classic novels on America's college campuses. And Tolkien became a "cult hero".

By 1968 the letters and gifts (and midnight phone calls) to his home became intolerable, and that, coupled with his and Edith's failing health, caused their move to Bournemouth where they hoped to live as "secretly" as possible.

I do like what he had to say about all the hoopla: "Being a cult figure of one's own lifetime I am afraid is not at all pleasant. However I do not find that it tends to puff one up; in my case at any rate it makes me feel extremely small and inadequate. But even the nose of a very modest idol cannot remain entirely untickled by the sweet smell of incense." (Carpenter's Biography) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~